ABSTRACT
In an era where energy conservation has become the latest topic of
discussion not only among the erudite but also among the ordinary
responsible denizens , fuel efficiency along with minimum
pollution has become the benchmark for any new automobile.
And in the same context “Hybrid Cars” come as the latest
addition. By the name itself it can be inferred that a hybrid car is
an improvisation to the traditional gasoline engine run car
combined with the power of an electric motor.
The seminar on the above topic intends to bring to notice
the concepts associated with the hybrid technology through the
following topics – components and constituents, need , efficiency,
performance,etc.
OVERVIEW
Have you pulled your car up to the gas pump lately and been
shocked by the high price of gasoline? As the pump clicked past
$20 or $30, maybe you thought about trading in that SUV for
something that gets better mileage. Or maybe you are worried that
your car is contributing to the greenhouse effect. Or maybe you
just want to have the coolest car on the
block.
Currently, Honda and Toyota have the
technology that might answer all of
these needs. It's the hybrid car, and
both manufacturers have begun selling The 2000 Honda
their versions in the United States. Insight hybrid electric
You're probably aware of hybrid cars car
because they've been in the news a lot.
In fact, most automobile manufacturers have announced plans to
manufacture their own versions.
How does a hybrid car work? What goes on under the hood to give
you 20 or 30 more miles per gallon than the standard automobile?
And does it pollute less just because it gets better gas mileage.In
this seminar we will study how this amazing technology works and
also discuss about TOYOTA & HONDA hybrid cars .
What Makes it a "Hybrid"?
Any vehicle is hybrid when it combines two or more sources of
power. In fact, many people have probably owned a hybrid vehicle
at some point. For example, a mo-ped (a motorized pedal bike) is a
type of hybrid because it combines the power of a gasoline engine
with the pedal power of its rider.
Hybrid vehicles are all around us. Most of the locomotives we see
pulling trains are diesel-electric hybrids. Cities like Seattle have
diesel-electric buses -- these can draw electric power from
overhead wires or run on diesel when they are away from the
wires. Giant mining trucks are often diesel-electric hybrids.
Submarines are also hybrid vehicles -- some are nuclear-electric
and some are diesel-electric. Any vehicle that combines two or
more sources of power that can directly or indirectly provide
propulsion power is a hybrid.
The gasoline-electric hybrid car is just that -- a cross between a
gasoline-powered car and an electric car. Let's start with a few
diagrams to explain the differences.
Figure 1 shows a gas-powered car. It has a fuel tank, which
supplies gasoline to the engine. The engine then turns a
transmission, which turns the wheels.
Figure 1. Gasoline-powered car
Figure 2 below shows an electric car, which has a set of batteries
that provides electricity to an electric motor. The motor turns a
transmission, and the transmission turns the wheels.
Figure 2. Electric car
Hybrid Structure
You can combine the two power sources found in a hybrid car in
different ways. One way, known as a parallel hybrid, has a fuel
tank, which supplies gasoline to the engine. But it also has a set of
batteries that supplies power to an electric motor. Both the engine
and the electric motor can turn the transmission at the same time,
and the transmission then turns the wheels.
Figure 3 shows a typical parallel hybrid. We'll notice that the fuel
tank and gas engine connect to the transmission. The batteries and
electric motor also connect to the transmission independently. As a
result, in a parallel hybrid, both the electric motor and the gas
engine can provide propulsion power.
Figure 3. Parallel hybrid car
By contrast, in a series hybrid (Figure 4 below) the gasoline
engine turns a generator, and the generator can either charge the
batteries or power an electric motor that drives the transmission.
Thus, the gasoline engine never directly powers the vehicle.
Take a look at the diagram of the series hybrid, starting with the
fuel tank, and you'll see that all of the components form a line that
eventually connects with the transmission.
Figure 4. Series hybrid car
Hybrid Components
Hybrid cars contain the following parts:
 Gasoline engine - The hybrid car has a gasoline engine much
like the one you will find on most cars. However, the engine
on a hybrid will be smaller and will use advanced
technologies to reduce emissions and increase efficiency.
 Fuel tank - The fuel tank in a hybrid is the energy storage
device for the gasoline engine. Gasoline has a much higher
energy density than batteries do. For example, it takes about
1,000 pounds of batteries to store as much energy as 1 gallon
(7 pounds) of gasoline.
 Electric motor - The electric motor on a hybrid car is very
sophisticated. Advanced electronics allow it to act as a motor
as well as a generator. For example, when it needs to, it can
draw energy from the batteries to accelerate the car. But
acting as a generator, it can slow the car down and return
energy to the batteries.
 Generator - The generator is similar to an electric motor, but
it acts only to produce electrical power. It is used mostly on
series hybrids.
 Batteries - The batteries in a hybrid car are the energy
storage device for the electric motor. Unlike the gasoline in
the fuel tank, which can only power the gasoline engine, the
electric motor on a hybrid car can put energy into the
batteries as well as draw energy from them.
 Transmission - The transmission on a hybrid car performs
the same basic function as the transmission on a conventional
car. Some hybrids, like the Honda Insight, have conventional
transmissions. Others, like the Toyota Prius, have radically
different ones, which we’ll talk about later.
Parts of an Engine
Figure 5
Here's a quick description of each one, along with a lot of
vocabulary that will help us understand what all the car ads are
talking about.
Cylinder
The core of the engine is the cylinder. The piston moves up and
down inside the cylinder. The engine described here has one
cylinder. That is typical of most lawn mowers, but most cars have
more than one cylinder (four, six and eight cylinders are common).
In a multi-cylinder engine the cylinders usually are arranged in one
of three ways: inline, V or flat (also known as horizontally
opposed or boxer), as shown in the following figures.
Figure 6. Inline - The cylinders are arranged in a line in a
single bank.
Figure 7. V - The cylinders are arranged in two banks set at an
angle to one another.
Figure 8. Flat - The cylinders are arranged in two banks on
opposite sides of the engine.
Different configurations have different smoothness,
manufacturing-cost and shape characteristics that make them more
suitable in some vehicles.
Sparkplug
The spark plug supplies the spark that ignites the air/fuel mixture
so that combustion can occur. The spark must happen at just the
right moment for things to work properly.
Valves
The intake and exhaust valves open at the proper time to let in air
and fuel and to let out exhaust. Note that both valves are closed
during compression and combustion so that the combustion
chamber is sealed.
Piston
A piston is a cylindrical piece of metal that moves up and down
inside the cylinder.
Pistonrings
Piston rings provide a sliding seal between the outer edge of the
piston and the inner edge of the cylinder. The rings serve two
purposes:
 They prevent the fuel/air mixture and exhaust in the
combustion chamber from leaking into the sump during
compression and combustion.
 They keep oil in the sump from leaking into the combustion
area, where it would be burned and lost.
Most cars that "burn oil" and have to have a quart added every
1,000 miles are burning it because the engine is old and the rings
no longer seal things properly.
Combustionchamber
The combustion chamber is the area where compression and
combustion take place. As the piston moves up and down, you can
see that the size of the combustion chamber changes. It has some
maximum volume as well as a minimum volume. The difference
between the maximum and minimum is called the displacement
and is measured in liters or CCs (Cubic Centimeters, where 1,000
cubic centimeters equals a liter). So if you have a 4-cylinder engine
and each cylinder displaces half a liter, then the entire engine is a
"2.0 liter engine." If each cylinder displaces half a liter and there
are six cylinders arranged in a V configuration, you have a "3.0
liter V-6." Generally, the displacement tells you something about
how much power an engine has. A cylinder that displaces half a
liter can hold twice as much fuel/air mixture as a cylinder that
displaces a quarter of a liter, and therefore you would expect about
twice as much power from the larger cylinder (if everything else is
equal). So a 2.0 liter engine is roughly half as powerful as a 4.0
liter engine. You can get more displacement either by increasing
the number of cylinders or by making the combustion chambers of
all the cylinders bigger (or both).
Connectingrod
The connecting rod connects the piston to the crankshaft. It can
rotate at both ends so that its angle can change as the piston moves
and the crankshaft rotates.
Crankshaft
The crank shaft turns the piston's up and down motion into circular
motion just like a crank on a jack-in-the-box does.
Sump
The sump surrounds the crankshaft. It contains some amount of oil,
which collects in the bottom of the sump (the oil pan).
Parts of an Electric Motor
Let's start by looking at the overall plan of a simple two-pole DC
electric motor. A simple motor has six parts, as shown in the
diagram below:
 Armature or rotor
 Commutator
 Brushes
 Axle
 Field magnet
 DC power supply of some sort
Parts of an electric motor
An electric motor is all about magnets and magnetism: A motor
uses magnets to create motion. If you have ever played with
magnets you know about the fundamental law of all magnets:
Opposites attract and likes repel. So if you have two bar magnets
with their ends marked "north" and "south," then the north end of
one magnet will attract the south end of the other. On the other
hand, the north end of one magnet will repel the north end of the
other (and similarly, south will repel south). Inside an electric
motor, these attracting and repelling forces create rotational
motion.
In the diagram we can see two magnets in the motor: The armature
(or rotor) is an electromagnet, while the field magnet is a
permanent magnet (the field magnet could be an electromagnet as
well, but in most small motors it isn't in order to save power).
Evolution of the Hybrid
The hybrid is a compromise. It attempts to significantly increase
the mileage and reduce the emissions of a gas-powered car while
overcoming the shortcomings of an electric car.
The Problem with Gas-powered Cars
To be useful to you or me, a car must meet certain minimum
requirements. The car should be able to:
 Drive at least 300 miles (482 km) between re-fueling
 Be refueled quickly and easily
 Keep up with the other traffic on the road
A gasoline car meets these requirements but produces a relatively
large amount of pollution and generally gets poor gas mileage. An
electric car, on the other hand, produces almost no pollution, but it
can only go 50 to 100 miles (80 to 161 km) between charges. And
the problem has been that it is very slow and inconvenient to
recharge.
A driver's desire for quick acceleration causes our cars to be
much less efficient than they could be. You may have noticed that
a car with a less powerful engine gets better gas mileage than an
identical car with a more powerful engine. Just look at the window
stickers on new cars at a dealership for a city and highway mpg
comparison.
The amazing thing is that most of what we require a car to do uses
only a small percentage of its horsepower! When you are driving
along the freeway at 60 mph (96.6 kph), your car engine has to
provide the power to do three things:
 Overcome the aerodynamic drag caused by pushing the car
through the air
 Overcome all of the friction in the car's components such as
the tires, transmission, axles and brakes
 Provide power for accessories like air conditioning, power
steering and headlights
For most cars, doing all this requires less than 20 horsepower! So,
why do you need a car with 200 horsepower? So you can "floor it,"
which is the only time you use all that power. The rest of the time,
you use considerably less power than you have available.
Smaller Engines are More Efficient
Most cars require a relatively big engine to produce enough power
to accelerate the car quickly. In a small engine, however, the
efficiency can be improved by using smaller, lighter parts, by
reducing the number of cylinders and by operating the engine
closer to its maximum load.
There are several reasons why smaller engine are more efficient
than big ones:
 The big engine is heavier than the small engine, so the car
uses extra energy every time it accelerates or drives up a hill.
 The pistons and other internal components are heavier,
requiring more energy each time they go up and down in the
cylinder.
 The displacement of the cylinders is larger, so more fuel is
required by each cylinder.
 Bigger engines usually have more cylinders, and each
cylinder uses fuel every time the engine fires, even if the car
isn't moving.
This explains why two of the same model cars with different
engines can get different mileage. If both cars are driving along the
freeway at the same speed, the one with the smaller engine uses
less energy. Both engines have to output the same amount of
power to drive the car, but the small engine uses less power to
drive itself
Hybrid Performance
The key to a hybrid car is that the gasoline engine can be much
smaller than the one in a conventional car and therefore more
efficient. But how can this smaller engine provide the power your
car needs to keep up with the more powerful cars on the road?
Let's compare a car like the Chevy Camaro, with its big V-8
engine, to our hybrid car with its small gas engine and electric
motor. The engine in the Camaro has more than enough power to
handle any driving situation. The engine in the hybrid car is
powerful enough to move the car along on the freeway, but when it
needs to get the car moving in a hurry, or go up a steep hill, it
needs help. That "help" comes from the electric motor and battery -
- this system steps in to provide the necessary extra power.
The gas engine on a conventional car is sized for the peak power
requirement (those few times when you floor the accelerator
pedal). In fact, most drivers use the peak power of their engines
less than one percent of the time. The hybrid car uses a much
smaller engine, one that is sized closer to the average power
requirement than to the peak power.
Hybrid Efficiency
Besides a smaller, more efficient engine, today's hybrids use many
other tricks to increase fuel efficiency. Some of those tricks will
help any type of car get better mileage, and some only apply to a
hybrid. To squeeze every last mile out of a gallon of gasoline, a
hybrid car can:
 Recover energy and store it in the battery - Whenever you
step on the brake pedal in your car, you are removing energy
from the car. The faster a car is going, the more kinetic
energy it has. The brakes of a car remove this energy and
dissipate it in the form of heat. A hybrid car can capture some
of this energy and store it in the battery to use later. It does
this by using "regenerative braking." That is, instead of just
using the brakes to stop the car, the electric motor that drives
the hybrid can also slow the car. In this mode, the electric
motor acts as a generator and charges the batteries while the
car is slowing down.
 Sometimes shut off the engine - A hybrid car does not need
to rely on the gasoline engine all of the time because it has an
alternate power source -- the electric motor and batteries. So
the hybrid car can sometimes turn off the gasoline engine, for
example when the vehicle is stopped at a red light.
 Use advanced aerodynamics
to reduce drag - When you are
driving on the freeway, most of
the work your engine does goes
into pushing the car through the Figure 5. The frontal
air. This force is known as area profile of a small
aerodynamic drag. This drag and large car
force can be reduced in a
variety of ways. One sure way is to reduce the frontal area of
the car (Figure 5). Think of how a big SUV has to push a
much greater area through the air than a tiny sports car.
Reducing disturbances around objects that stick out from the
car or eliminating them altogether can also help to improve
the aerodynamics. For example, covers over the wheel
housings smooth the airflow and reduce drag. And
sometimes, mirrors are replaced with small cameras. This site
provides more information on car aerodynamics.
 Use low-rolling resistance tires - The tires on most cars are
optimized to give a smooth ride, minimize noise, and provide
good traction in a variety of weather conditions. But they are
rarely optimized for efficiency. In fact, the tires cause a
surprising amount of drag while you are driving. Hybrid cars
use special tires that are both stiffer and inflated to a higher
pressure than conventional tires. The result is that they cause
about half the drag of regular tires.
 Use lightweight materials - Reducing the overall weight of a
car is one easy way to increase the mileage. A lighter vehicle
uses less energy each time you accelerate or drive up a hill.
Composite materials like carbon fiber or lightweight metals
like aluminum and magnesium can be used to reduce weight.
What's Available Now?
Two hybrid cars are now available in the United States -- the
Honda Insight and the Toyota Prius. Although both of these cars
are hybrids, they are actually quite different in character.
The Honda Insight &Toyota Prius
The Honda is about $18,000, and the Toyota about $20,000. Both
cars have a gasoline engine, an electric motor and batteries, but
that is where the similarities end.
The Honda Insight, which was introduced in early 2000 in the
United States, is designed to get the best possible mileage. Honda
used every trick in the book to make the car as efficient as it can
be. The Insight is a small, lightweight two-seater with a tiny, high-
efficiency gas engine.
The Toyota Prius, which came out in Japan at the end of 1997, is
designed to reduce emissions in urban areas. It meets California's
super ultra low emissions vehicle (SULEV) standard. It is a four-
door sedan that seats five, and the powertrain is capable of
accelerating the vehicle to speeds up to 15 mph (24 kph) on
electric power alone.
Hybrid Maintenance
Both the Honda and the Toyota have long warranties on the
hybrid systems. The Insight has an eight-year/80,000-mile
warranty on most of the powertrain, including batteries, and a
three-year/36,000-mile warranty on the rest of the car. The Prius
has an eight-year/100,000-mile warranty on the battery and hybrid
systems and a three-year/36,000-mile warranty on everything else.
The motors and batteries in these cars don't require any
maintenance over the life of the vehicle. And the engine doesn't
require any more maintenance than the one in any other car. And
because both hybrids have regenerative braking, the brake pads
may even last a little longer than those in most cars.
However, if you do have to replace the batteries after the warranty
expires, it will most likely cost you several thousand dollars.
Hybrid Mileage Tips
You can get the best mileage from a hybrid car by using the same
kind of driving habits that give you better mileage in your
gasoline-engine car:
 Drive slower - The aerodynamic drag on the car increases
dramatically the faster you drive. For example, the drag force
at 70 mph (113 kph) is about double that at 50 mph (81 kph).
So, keeping your speed down can increase your mileage
significantly.
 Maintain a constant speed - Each time you speed up the car
you use energy, some of which is wasted when you slow the
car down again. By maintaining a constant speed, you will
make the most efficient use of your fuel.
 Avoid abrupt stops - When you stop your car, the electric
motor in the hybrid acts like a generator and takes some of
the energy out of the car while slowing it down. If you give
the electric motor more time to slow the vehicle, it can
recover more of the energy. If you stop quickly, the brakes on
the car will do most of the work of slowing the car down, and
that energy will be wasted.
Conclusion
Though at present the concept has been put in to maximum
utilization by Honda & Toyota,it is indeed an important research
avenue for other car manufacturing units as well.One can surely
conclude that this concept,and the similar ones to follow with even
better efficiency & conservation rate are very much on the anvil in
today’s energy deficit world.
Reference
www.howstuffswork.com